Arctic Cat Media Ride at 2016 Rally on the Rocks

Posted on April 25, 2016

While at the annual Rally on the Rocks event in Moab, Utah, Arctic Cat invited media for a day on the trail to experience the full lineup of Wildcats. On the ride, Arctic had their Wildcat X, Wildcat 4x, Wildcat Trail and Wildcat Sport on the ride and we tackled a trail south of Moab called Behind the Rocks. Dean Bulloch from D&P Performance was our trail guide. You may recognize the name because Dean has been in a Wildcat Sport at the last two King of the Hammers UTV Races.

All of the Wildcats are sport UTVs, but span different market segments. The Wildcat Trail is a small 50-inch trail legal side-by-side with a 700cc twin engine that has a best-in-class power-to-weight ratio. The Wildcat Sport is the long travel version of the Trail and comes in at 60-inches wide. The Wildcat is the desert and dunes sport machine with 1000cc v-twin and gobs of suspension. And the Wildcat 4 is the four-seat version of the Wildcat.

Behind the Rocks

Behind the Rocks is an 8+ rated trail that offers some extreme obstacles, some with bypasses and others like White Knuckle Hill do not. Behind the Rocks is one of Moab’s most challenging trails, and not for the faint of heart. The trail starts just south of town on a dirt road. You aren’t very far into it when you are treated to Guardian Hill (or Gatekeeper), a very rocky, sandy and steep hill. If this hill gives you a lot of trouble then you should be prepared for a day filled with issues. It’s a good test to see how you’ll do on the rest of the trail.

Wildcat X coming upGatekeeper on Behind the Rocks

Tony from JRi Shocks taking on Guardian Hill in a Wildcat X

At about 3.5 miles into the trail you’ll come to the next challenging obstacle. High Dive has a bypass, but many in our group chose to take it on. High Dive is a very steep and bumpy hill.

Wildcat X coming down High Dive

At the bottom of High Dive is Upchuck. Upchuck is a slick, steep hill with a significant crack in the middle that most successful climbs will straddle. Slipping into the crack can spell body damage or worse.

50-inch Wildcat Trail climbing Upchuck

Upchuck on Behind the Rocks

Dean from D&P Performance in hisWildcat Sport climbing Upchuck

After High Dive and Upchuck we blasted through some faster desert terrain and headed toward Prostitute Butte (also known as Lone Rock). There is a big, sandy area where we parked under Balcony Arch. This also happened to be the spot where the guys from Camp Chef had setup to provide an awesome trailside lunch for us!

After lunch, we headed over to the dunes to play around a bit before heading back to rally headquarters at Spanish Trail Arena.

Chuck from Dempsey Offroad AdventuresCatching some air in the Wildcat Sport

Moab is an incredible location to go off-roading and the Arctic Cat Wildcat lineup proved to be very capable on the trail. Each Wildcat model has its strong points, but they all did well on Behind the Rocks.

The Arctic Cat brand is among the most widely recognized and respected in the recreational vehicle industry. The company designs, engineers, manufactures and markets all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), side-by-sides and snowmobiles, in addition to related parts, garments and accessories under the Arctic Cat® and Motorfist® brand names. Arctic Cat Inc.s world headquarters is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Its common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol ACAT. More information about Arctic Cat and its products is available at www.arcticcat.com.